


Of Cigarettes And Quiet Tears

by Ididntsignupforthisshit (myhamartia)



Series: Newsies Tumblr Prompts [2]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst, Common Reincarnation, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 15:04:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12655908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myhamartia/pseuds/Ididntsignupforthisshit
Summary: Things You Said While I Was Cryingwherein Jack and David share a cigarette and David is very emotional. Rightly so.





	Of Cigarettes And Quiet Tears

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this was written for the prompt  _things you said while I was crying!_
> 
> hope you like it!
> 
> you can send me prompts from [this list](https://itsnewstome.tumblr.com/post/167217987755/send-me-a-ship-and-one-of-these-and-ill-write-a) if you want! I'll take literally any pairing. Seriously. Test me.

Davey slipped to the ground, his back against the brick wall of the alley. His fingers shook and his breaths heaved.

He tried to breathe deeply, to calm himself, but nothing helped.

He twisted his fingers into the soft skin of his inner wrist, trying to find a grounding point. It didn’t work.

The door to the alley banged open and there were footsteps nearing him. Davey looked up to find Jack staring at him, several feet ahead of him. His eyes were soft and Davey could see his hands trembling.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I can’t look at him,” Davey choked out.

“Oh, Dave,” Jack murmured. He came closer and dropped to sit down next to Davey. He pulled a carton of cigarettes from his breast pocket and lit one up. He blew the smoke out of the corner of his mouth away from Davey and offered the cigarette. David took it unsteadily and inhaled on it deeply. “Doesn’t get any easier, does it?”

He didn’t have to expand. David knew he was talking about their past lives. So much was different, now. They were so fortunate to have found each other again, and others, but…  _ god, _ it hurt. Sometimes, when they found someone from their past lives, they didn’t remember - or it was bare details at best.  It was nothing like David’s memory, or Jack’s. It was nothing like Race’s, or Henry’s, or Finch’s. They remembered. They remembered the streets and how they were treated. They remembered how hard it was to scrape together enough money to eat, to  _ live _ . They remembered the strike and how hard they worked for it to  _ mean _ something. To make it more than a forgotten news story.

“Never.” Davey thumped his head back against the bricks.

They found Les. After  _ years _ of keeping an eye out for him, of somehow  _ hoping _ of finding him, they had. He was 19, had a girlfriend from New Jersey, and he went to a small community college that Race was a TA of.

He recognized Race first. Shallowly. Vaguely.

Les was one of the folk whose memory corroded and faded with age. It rotted and crumbled like an old tree stump, left to wither and die.

He knew faced. Somehow, like they all did. Even if they looked nothing like the original versions of themselves. Les knew them, but just couldn’t  _ remember _ .

It stung. It plunged between Davey’s rubs like a heated knife, searing and tearing at everything it touched. Every glance without the spark of recognition drove it deeper in.

Sooner or later, Davey was going to die of blood loss.

He didn’t realize he was crying until Jack reached out to wipe the tears from his cheeks.

“He’ll remember.” Jack said it firmly, like he wholeheartedly believed it.

David took another pull from the cigarette.

“Maybe,” he said hollowly. He wanted to believe it, he did.

But he cried more tears, smoked more cigarettes.

Jack held him in his arms, trying to fight off the pain and the knowledge that Davey had perhaps lost his brother for a second time.

**Author's Note:**

> _come see me over on[tumblr](https://itsnewstome.tumblr.com)_


End file.
